


i'll live forever

by alwayshighsomehow



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Batfamily (DCU), Batfamily is disfunctional prove me wrong, Batman fucks up big time, Canon What Canon, Canon-Typical Violence, Families of Choice, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Jason Todd-centric, No Beta read we die like men, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Permanent Injury, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Under the Red Hood, there is no reconciliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:42:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28809837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwayshighsomehow/pseuds/alwayshighsomehow
Summary: Jason Todd is all by himself once again.No big deal, he always found a way to get back on his feet. Before he met Bruce, he was a Crime Alley kid first and foremost. Even death couldn't hold him back. This time should be no different.But it is.Meanwhile, he learns to build a life of his own and hold onto it. He learns how to let go.set just after the events of Under the Red Hood.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 58





	i'll live forever

**Author's Note:**

> I hate DC's approach to Jason. In Rebirth his personality was nothing but He-was-a-psycho-all-along-what-did-you-expect-from-a-street-kid-anyway. Or the personal-punchbag-of-batman thing going on in Rhato?? They dış my boy dirty and I'm making it right. So it is a little bit of comics here a little bit of cartoons there. The events of this fic are set just after Batman: Under the Red Hood before things go beyond reconciliation.

That day, he walked out of the Crime Alley with a broken arm, a laceration on his neck, and a shattered collarbone out of all injuries. It was like, what would they call it, _karma_. He had no idea what was wrong with his right hand and he really hoped his nose bleed was due to a broken nose. He also vomited the second he managed to get up, so a concussion probably beat whatever caused his nose to bleed. If blood loss didn’t get him first.

He may be delusional and out of touch with reality from time to time. He had his moments. But he was not arrogant to think he was capable at that time to cover his track against the world’s best detective. He left a blood trail as he moved. He was heavily injured. He struggled walking a straight line to a safer spot than an open field. Batman could catch him then and there. Yet he didn’t. Jason had enough time to cover, catch his breath, and call up his contact.

Batman was alive and kicking after the explosion. He was not one to left unfinished business either. Then how could Jason manage to getaway? There should have been something more important than to track him. It would give Jason enough time to escape. It was a vacated building in the significant distance to any civilians. Jason made sure to minimize the collaterals. So, it was not to give first aid to civilians. Then what demanded his attention? It was only him, Batman, and _the clown._

Somehow, after everything they have been through, Jason still had enough hope from Bruce that it wasn’t the Joker. When the person he called son just a moment ago, the person he cut his throat, blew up his hand, beat the shit out of him was bleeding to death, he was still looking after the clown. He must be. Did he trust that Jason’s condition would be good enough to not die, again? It was true that Batarang did not hit a spot that would cause _immediate_ death. He still did that pool of blood thing. Did he believe Jason was immortal now? Or did he not think about him at all and only focused on not having the death of Joker on himself? To not be the accessory to his murder? But the clown had enough energy in him to laugh hard as ever when Jason was getting away from the scene.

These thoughts did not occur to him at the moment. It did not occur to him when he was waiting for his men to get him out of there, half sure that he wouldn’t make it.

But they did occur to him when he crushed in the Leslie Thompkins’ apartment.

The half-empty flat remembered him the safe houses he used in the last years. They were all different yet the same. The bare minimum furniture with no trace of being used, the blank walls that stare back to you, the lack of any personal belongings never changed. Only she had a bookshelf and Jason usually kept a well-stocked armory in most of his safe houses. But the lone feeling it left was the same.

What did Jason hope, truly? From the man that replaced him in less than six months?

Jason dared to hope, from the man he called dad, to act like one.

Now was the time to face the consequences.

Like his blown-up hand.

The green in him boiled with the anger risen in him with his crushed hopes. His veins burnt. The breath he takes burnt. His vision started to blur but he couldn’t afford to slip. Dr. Thompkins was about to walk in at any minute now. He had to keep his consciousness and sanity.

His bat-related daddy issues came second to his life.

_You don’t understand. I don’t think you’ve ever understood._

**(He left you to die there. He saved Joker and not you. He has to die. Kill him. Kill him now.)**

A breath in, a breath out.

_I can’t. I’m sorry._

**(He would for the new one. He would do it for him. But not for you. Kill him. Kill them. Kill them all.)**

A breath in, count to five, breath out.

He was prepared to die in that abandoned building. He was prepared to be abandoned again. Yet it stung nevertheless.

A breath in, a breath out.

He didn’t die in Ethiopia. He didn’t die in that confrontation. He wasn’t going to die in Leslie Thompkins’ apartment out of all places.

He heard the keys and the door opened. They had eye contact. Jason didn’t have his helmet or domino mask. She looked like she was going to scream but there was also a faint of recognition.

“Hi, Doc. It’s me, Jason. Sorry about the blood on your carpets,” He coughed. But he couldn’t raise his right hand and his left was busy pressing down his neck. Fuck it. He coughed blood. “and your table. Miss me?”

The look on her face almost made Jason laugh. Almost. Before he fainted, of course.

* * *

“So, you have risen from death and now you are crime lord, huh?” Dr. Thompkins asked him while stitching his neck.

“Yeah, the new big thing in the streets and all. We will see how long it will stick.”

“Not long, considering your injuries.”

Jason chose to remain silent.

“I’m assuming Bruce knows?”

Jason flinched.

“Who do you think I got these scars from?” Jason laughed bitterly. “Not from Black Mask I tell you.”

“Stay still,” said Dr. Thompkins.

“I helped Crime Alley-“

“Stay _still_.” Her hand on his face pressed more.

“Crime rates did drop in a month. And before you ask yes, including me to the stats.”

Dr Thompkins did not comment on it. Instead, she moved on to what Jason assumed was the last stitch. Her hands were fast, faster than Jason ever will be and he had to make lots of stitches.

“You are lucky I have the supplies to put your arm in a cast. Believe it or not, people actually show up to the clinic and not my house.”

She released her head. Jason fought the inner urge to creak his neck despite of the pain. When Jason insisted there was no need for any kind of pain killers, Dr. Thompkins was disturbed but she wasn’t extremely distressed _per se_ by the idea. It was pointless, anyway. They didn’t work in his system. Plus the pain made him focus. This way he wouldn’t slip.

“Your clinic doesn’t have a back door. Can’t risk bats seeing me there. _And_ no other gang sees me walking in your clinic either. I thought you would appreciate the sentiment.”

“I do.” She put his forearm in some sort of sock and started wrapping it. “I would do it more if you walked in the front door next time.”

“I doubt it Doc.”

“That you will not use my house as your personal clinic?” She raised one eyebrow.

“That there will be the next time.”

“Jason-“

“I am not saying I’m gonna die. I cannot stay in Gotham in this state. With the bounty on my head, and the gangs, and the Bruce on my tail. I can’t deal with all of them at once. I hate to go. I hate to see what I accomplished to go to waste. I hate that they will never gonna accomplish that, not even in a year,”

Dr Thompkins had this look on her face but didn’t say anything either. “Don’t look at me like that. You know they can’t. It will be worse, Doc. I cover a significant territory and when I’m gone, the gangs will fight over that. And Black Mask’s territory too. I hate to leave but I’m not going to Blackgate and not _Arkham_ for God’s sake.”

“Bruce wouldn’t put you in Arkham.”

“And I thought he didn’t do permanent damage but here we are I guess.” He raised his right arm to point out. “He said he could help. By help he means Arkham. I was in capes long enough to know that.”

Doctor Thompkins was finished with his left arm but she didn’t seem like she felt at ease.

“I still think we should have X-rayed it. And your right hand, and your chest. The clinic isn’t far.”

“I told you so, it’s just temporary. I will have someone to look at it before the day ends.”

“It’s half past 2.”

“Okay, before the dawn. As soon as I get out of Gotham.”

She didn’t seem much impressed by it. But she went by it anyway.

“I can trust you will keep this between us?”

“I knew you before you meet Bruce, Jason. I won’t tell him of your little monologues. Only that you were alive and hopefully beyond the risk of death _because you didn’t let me test_.”

“No, none of that. Tell him you know no person of that name.”

“Jason-“

“Don’t let him know I met you at all, even if he asks and I won’t disturb your house _ever_.”

“You know I don’t negotiate with your lot-“

“C’mon Doc, I know you like me. Let it slide for this time.”

Jason’s watch beeped two times.

“And it is my cue.” He said while looking at his right wrist. He was going to have the best time of his life silencing it won’t he? He made eye contact with Doctor Thompkins for the last time for the foreseeable future. “Remember Doc, no rattling to any Bat sort.”

She didn’t seem so sure.

The next move though, probably baffled her, since he had broken ribs that she already suspected and a possible concussion that she was not aware of. He did jump off her balcony before he got on a motorcycle that one of his last loyal men used, not him _thank you very much_. Because he was a responsible young man.

Even though his chest could go without landing. Or the motorcycle. Small sacrifices.

“Off to Bristol.”

Not like they were going to stop there. They were going to stop, of course, just to let Jason make the necessary alterations on CCTV to let them enter in the safe hands of Blüdhaven. _Gosh_ , that city was a mess even in Gotham’s standards. Dick came back to Blüdhaven but he was injured badly the other week. Oracle had a presence in Blüdhaven CCTV scene enough to be aware of, now more than ever, assuming they realized his absent dead body under the wreckage but she never dared to have it as establish enough as it was in Gotham. It was a territory thing. Just like the gangs did. His bet was that they stayed focus on areas that are not already in their control. He had safe houses all over the city. He knew of a doctor _with a backdoor to his very discreet clinic_. He will get the medical care he needed. He will rest for a couple of days and contact Talia in the emergency line. They can arrange a meeting in the outskirts maybe? It was gonna be fine.

Jason was going to be fine as soon as he got out of this damned city.

* * *

  
_Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage_  
_Someone will say, "What is lost can never be saved"_

_And what do I get for my pain?_  
_Betrayed desires and a piece of the game_

_Now I'm naked, nothing but an animal_  
_But can you fake it for just one more show?_  
_And what do you want?_

_I want change._  
_And what do you got when you feel the same?_

_Tell me I'm the only one_  
_Tell me there's no other one_  
_Jesus was your only son, yeah_  
_Tell me I'm the chosen one_  
_Jesus was the only son for you_

_And I still believe that I cannot be saved_


End file.
